Making contact again

[Birca]

I wonder if anyone out there has any experience of something like this?

 

When I was 14 (I think) and my sister was 10, my parents divorced. (Well, actually he wasnt my dad, he was my sisters dad with my mum, but hed been my dad since I was 3). For the few years before the divorce my mum became very emotionally estranged from him and turned me and my sister against him. He had some mental health problems and she used this as justification for why he was no good in our lives. When they divorced she decided that we should all have no more contact with him and we agreed we "wanted" this although really we had been brainwashed. In retrospect there was no reason for this.

 

Well its been getting for 15 years now since this. My mum has remarried and her new husband tried to impose himself as our father, but not in a constructive way. I still do not have a good relationship with him. Both of them like to consider that their past partners (my sisters father and his childrens mother) are in the past (although his kids still see thier mother).

 

In the meantime I have been feeling increasingly wieghed down by a sense of guilt at what was done to my sisters dad by my mum and me and my sister. He lost his kids as well as his wife and must have gone through a lot of pain. So I have been wondering in myself why I dont track him down and make contact - which would be easy enough. He can be quite difficult to deal with (he has what I think is manic depression and schizotypal syndrome with various symptoms such as innapropriate affect, rambling speech, and eccentric behavoir). Making contact with him would also cause a big problem for my stepdad and mum I think if I chose to discus it with them.

 

During my early 20s I had a lot of problems myself and didnt feel strong enough to dig up any more problem relatives but now I am thinking that I need to deal with this. I'm not in a relationship at the mo (see my other posts here ) but I am at the point in my life where I am thinking seriously about long term relationships and starting a family, and I want to do a better job of it than the previous generation. I dont want my childen growing up into a family where there are skeletons in the closet and shadows over peoples hearts. I want this to be sorted out somehow.

 

Not sure what the specifc point of this post is...just airing the whole topic I guess. Does anyone else have any experience of making contact with long lost family members and/or children being influenced into rejecting one of their parents during a divorce?

[Pocky]

Why don't you make the effort to track him down and then once you find him decide how you want to proceed? Not knowing if you'll find him may cause you to feel one way and once you find him may cause you to feel another way.